


Sound of Silence

by ShayLaLaLooHoo



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, DCAU - Fandom
Genre: Alzheimer's Disease, Angst, Bullying, Disturbing Themes, Headcanon, Headcanon Backstory, Headcanon Identity, Hurt, Memory Loss, Other, Platonic M/F Friendship, fear toxin, headcanons galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 23:00:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5684452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShayLaLaLooHoo/pseuds/ShayLaLaLooHoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Scarecrow is used to hearing screaming and gasping and cries of pain, but he hadn't gassed someone like The Music Meister. Depicts violence from bullying, and all around intense situation. Fear gas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sound of Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, more Music Meister, including my personal headcanon on his backstory.

“Hmm...how strange.”

The voice sounds almost like Jonathon, but too smooth and without a trace of Southern accent, but no matter how much it sounds like him, it most definitely isn't, and each word pounds against Patrick's skull.

Patrick's back on his hands and knees on the floor of his sixth-grade choir classroom, and someone's foot is planted on his spine, holding him down.

“You know, in all my years of experiments, I thought I'd seen it all. Fears of heights and darkness and tight spaces.”

Patrick dares to raise his head and is met with a bully's fist to his face. He swears he can feel his retainer back in his mouth, his teeth colliding with it at such an angle that the plastic top snaps and carves a scar in the roof of his mouth.

When he opens his eyes next, he's on a soundstage at Gotham's city center. The Batman looms above him, an audience watches, and at the front is Black Canary. He can barely hear Scarecrow's words over the raucous laughter that pierces his ears.

“...There are things that crawl within you. Sometimes they eat you, or they just sit there. Other times they go inside, and they multiply, and thousands and thousands come out of every orifice of your body.”

The laughter blurs and fades like a poor recording, until all he can hear is one man laughing behind him.

Patrick's instantly hit with the thought that maybe Harley isn't safe. She's suddenly in his arms, lined with slashes and blood just like the first night he knew she'd been attacked. But her breathing is more shallow and she's fading like candlelight, but Patrick can't even cry or call her name.

Her eyes open and they're brilliant green. Suddenly he's at a nursing home, and a redheaded woman with too many wrinkles on her face looks back at him in confusion. He swallows.

“Some simply hallucinate, others can hear things or feel them, but some are unlucky enough to have all of their senses working against them,” the maliciously collected voice intones. “They hear, see, smell, taste, and especially _feel_ their fears coming to life and strangling them. But this...”

 _Do I know you?_ She asks, and he feels like screaming.

 _Yes,_ he wants to say as tears stream down his cheeks. _Yes, yes, you do know me! I'm your son!_

“But _this..._ ” Scarecrow hisses in awe.

Patrick's at Arkham, standing in front of a crowd of criminals. A plant snaps at him, a coin is tossed, and someone twirls an ace of hearts in their hand. There's an empty seat beside someone with a gash for a smile, and it reminds Patrick that everyone he's ever truly cared about always ends up worse than before.

“...this is exquisite,” Scarecrow looms in front of him, and the stitches surrounding the mouth of his mask have never seemed so painful. “I've never seen anyone's body betray them like this.”

Patrick feels as though he's being strangled and he reaches a hand up to his neck to find the painfully-familiar collar he has to wear at Arkham clamped around his neck. He tries to pull it away, but it only gets tighter and tighter until he can barely breath.

“I've grown accustomed to screams, they're simply music to my ears. You love music, don't you, Clemens?”

Patrick keeps his eyes clamped shut as he tries to tear the collar away. He doesn't have the key or the code or whatever it is that will keep it off, and he knows that if he can't get this off, he will die.

“But you aren't making a sound.” Patrick can feel Scarecrow's breath against his face. “I can't even hear you gasping...can you breathe at all?”

Patrick realizes that he isn't in Arkham anymore. He's back in his childhood home, but no one is there. Everything begins falling around him, paint peels and tiles crack, but there isn't anything he can do.

“Everyone I've ever gassed before can scream and retch and cry all they like, but I don't think I've ever seen this.”

He turns, and the Scarecrow towers over him, arms behind his back. A white smile stretches underneath the mask, like a wound. He opens his arms, and Patrick barely has time to register that he's holding a threaded needle until Scarecrow crouches closer, stealing all of Patrick's breath.

“You're afraid of _silence_ , aren't you?” Scarecrow laughs, and the needle hovers fractions of millimeters away from his lips. “I wonder how that fear got planted within you?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> In my headcanon, Patrick's mother loved him dearly, but was older than average when she gave birth and underwent a lot of stress, so she developed Alzheimer's. Patrick began doing petty crimes to support himself and her until he had to put her into a nursing home. One of the last times he visited her, she'd forgotten who he was, and that set him over the edge and made him become a full-time supervillain.  
> Also I think that Jonathon Crane, being Southern, usually has an accent, but when he's in Scarecrow mode, it completely dissappears (into something like his New Batman Adventures voice.)


End file.
